My theory is that we can build this ourselves. In fact, as a professional PHP programmer, I know we can.

The only question is, can we do it any time soon?

I don't know the answer to that - but collectively, the rest of you do. Have any of you the skills and desire to make Gentoo Brainstorm a reality? If so, speak up! We can make this happen._________________Configuring a Firewall? Try my iptables configurationLinuxCommando.com is my blog for linux-related scraps and tidbits. Stop by for a visit!

Could possibly be a good idea, but I don't really like the format of that site. I think that the concept of having a place where Gentoo users can toss around ideas is excellent, though._________________“Truth, like infinity, is to be forever approached but never reached.” --Jean Ayres (1972)
---avatar cropped from =AimanStudio---

The original Ubuntu site is build on top of drupal as stated on this post. I've downloaded the code but I haven't been able of running it yet. It's doesn't work with drupal core 6.1. I need more experience on drupal

Another possibility is writing it from scratch (php, ror, django, etc.) but I hope we can reuse ubuntu's code as much as possible.

And, if it's not clear, I think that Gentoo Brainstorm is a great idea.

I personally don't think that something like the Ubuntu brainstorm would be suitable for Gentoo. If you look carefully, they are all related to installing/managing Ubuntu or upstream feature requests. If users have any requests for Gentoo, they can file a bug, or discuss it on IRC, mailing lists or here._________________www.gentoo.org.au || #gentoo-au

If users have any requests for Gentoo, they can file a bug, or discuss it on IRC, mailing lists or here.

Yeah but for new projects, using the same base, with no relation to existing stuff, there's no point. An implementation, even with some glitches, is much more to start from.

I like the idea, I just wish we could tie this into the forums; user accounts here are pretty solid, thanks to the moderation. Technically there's no reason why not; how about showing that the phpBB user DB used for the forum can also be used for the brainstorm site?

That way it'll be easy to plug in (or link if a proper in-housing is later declined.)

I personally don't think that something like the Ubuntu brainstorm would be suitable for Gentoo. If you look carefully, they are all related to installing/managing Ubuntu or upstream feature requests. If users have any requests for Gentoo, they can file a bug

Not a lot of the gentoo causal users go searching through the gentoo bugzilla, this I think would get more people involved/interested into the things happening around here

mark_alec wrote:

or discuss it on IRC

If you can ever find anyone who isn't AFK, I thtink posting it on a website would be better because not everyone is on irc 24/7 so certain people would might be helpful in getting something started might miss your post

mark_alec wrote:

mailing lists

Refer to my statement about the bugzilla.

mark_alec wrote:

or here.

yes I do agree the forums have been useful in something like this I don't see the harm in trying new things. If this guy is willing to put in the work to make this happen I'm all for it.

steveL wrote:

I like the idea, I just wish we could tie this into the forums; user accounts here are pretty solid, thanks to the moderation. Technically there's no reason why not; how about showing that the phpBB user DB used for the forum can also be used for the brainstorm site?

Or just make a gentoo brainstorm forum? Or even better a wiki page where anonymous users can edit the pages.

We have the gentoo-wiki, the forums, irc... Shouldn't that be enought for storing ideas?

You can store ideas on any of the former but a brainstorm page would easier the process. You can also use the forums instead of a wiki to do almost everything that the wiki but the wiki is a more convenient for different things. I think this is the case for the brainstorm page

Nope - there is already an existing infrastructure (bugzilla = reporting bugs + requesting new packages/features | forums = discussing problems + offering solutions) ... why not invest all the energy & efforts to optimize the existing infrastructure instead of creating yet another place where you have to look at?!?

Instead of creating a new application brainstrom.gentoo.org you could just open a new category "Brainstorming" in the forums and use that if it's about brainstorming and not looking at a nice interface with statistics and the like

Nope - there is already an existing infrastructure (bugzilla = reporting bugs + requesting new packages/features | forums = discussing problems + offering solutions) ... why not invest all the energy & efforts to optimize the existing infrastructure instead of creating yet another place where you have to look at?!?

Instead of creating a new application brainstrom.gentoo.org you could just open a new category "Brainstorming" in the forums and use that if it's about brainstorming and not looking at a nice interface with statistics and the like ;-)

You need a different sort of site, more focussed around creating content. It's cool to patch stuff on bugzilla and see the tree as the collective work, but stuff needs to go on separately too. I for one don't want too much untested and experimental stuff for my base system; I like Gentoo as I can tell it which things I follow. In the same way, there's no point trying to make the forums, or bugzilla, accommodate something they're not designed for; they work great as it is.

I'm only interested in having something higher-quality and more reliable than a wiki anyone can edit/deface as they feel; life's too short. Having that tied into user accounts makes a lot of sense to me, simply because the mods filter out anyone who's a spammer, consistently abusive etc. Further, most of us care about our user accounts, as we've been helped and in turn given help on these forums far more than anywhere else; while I like IRC, the forums are the basis of the Gentoo community for me. It's a qualitatively different thing to any of the current Gentoo infra; it may have been done time and again elsewhere, but so what? We can make a better one, just for Gentoo.

That sound much more interesting to me than sticking to the same old tools that haven't led to any sort of closer collaboration between a base of incredibly knowledgeable users and focussed, committed devs (most of em, that welp's terrible.. ;p) It amazes me how little stuff is scripted for example, or the scripts that are there aren't maintained. I'd love to help out with that kind of thing, especially if it wasn't a burden but a pleasurable collaboration in a friendly atmosphere.

I like the idea a lot. But the only way to make it worth the while IMO is to have it officially "recognized or supported" by Gentoo(sorry for my lack of better words). I think the way that Ubuntu chose to implement this makes sense as well. When I first went to the link, it felt like a blog in a way, there are categories for easy searching(flags could even be implemented for multi-categories), when looking at the suggestions you do not get easily distracted by other peoples comments or flames with out explicitly selecting to choose so. It also allows for a place to bring focus only to "brainstorming" ideas, rather than ideas being lost amongst thousands of threads, bugs, wiki entries, or you have to be there to see it suggested or search never endlessly through IRC logs. Like said earlier in this thread, not all users use IRC, wiki, or bugzilla, same holds true for the forums, and not just the users the devs and staff as well. Imagine if something like this were to be taken seriously do you honestly think that the staff when looking for ideas from the community would really dig through the threads or logs or bugs or some wiki. It just seems more productive and professional IMHO.

But with out Gentoo endorsing it, it would be a some what of a waste because some or a lot of the ideas from the community would involve changes that the community have no control of._________________Doing what you like is freedom.
Liking what you do is happiness.

One of the things I really like about the idea is the way it 'socializes' the brainstorming process. On the forums, you can tell which threads are unanswered, which threads are very commonly posted to, which threads have been viewed the most -- but there's no way to see how people, as a group, are brainstorming about gentoo. Not only do you get to read the idea, but also you see whether others thought as the poster did, or disagreed. To do such a thing on the forums would take painstaking reviews of each post (so often they add insubstantial content), and tallying it up by hand. On the brainstorming site, it's all tallied up for you. It's not seen by me as a means to get things done, as much as a means to see what the community is thinking (of course, if the powers choose to act on that, so much the better)._________________Configuring a Firewall? Try my iptables configurationLinuxCommando.com is my blog for linux-related scraps and tidbits. Stop by for a visit!

One of the things I really like about the idea is the way it 'socializes' the brainstorming process. On the forums, you can tell which threads are unanswered, which threads are very commonly posted to, which threads have been viewed the most -- but there's no way to see how people, as a group, are brainstorming about gentoo.

I didn't notice that until you said it erik258. The brainstorming could help to see where are the biggest interest of the community and how do they see Gentoo. Is like finding the community's "hidden agenda". If a user propose an idea that has good foundations and is very well explained is because he really wants it to be implemented because he has to work on it. As you said it, is not only about the ideas but also the community.

If a user propose an idea that has good foundations and is very well explained is because he really wants it to be implemented because he has to work on it. As you said it, is not only about the ideas but also the community.

The question is: will the work actually get done? I guess that's where the cynicism comes from ("a place for ideas to rot") but my view is that there hasn't been anywhere for users to do that openly, and in collaboration with each other, with effective authentication. I'd love to help out with stuff, if the atmosphere were similar to the forums; the community, as you said. I'm sure we could get space on gentooexperimental (that's what it's for, after all.)

One of the things I really like about the idea is the way it 'socializes' the brainstorming process. On the forums, you can tell which threads are unanswered, which threads are very commonly posted to, which threads have been viewed the most -- but there's no way to see how people, as a group, are brainstorming about gentoo.

you can also see how many people want certain feature implemented in gentoo. i wonder how many people would vote for e.g. replacing sysvinit with einit as default gentoo initsystem if we ever had gentoo brainstorm site :]_________________~amd64
shrink your /usr/portage with squashfs+aufs

you can also see how many people want certain feature implemented in gentoo. i wonder how many people would vote for e.g. replacing sysvinit with einit as default gentoo initsystem ;-) if we ever had gentoo brainstorm site :]

It's not about votes; there's been loads of polls on here and there could continue to be; the issue is implementing the ideas, I expect in overlays, to show they can work so devs can consider them for inclusion. Anyhow, I'd vote for OpenRC ;P

Well I'd like to hope it'd be about actually getting the good ideas done; high-quality suggestions are not hard to come by.. ;)
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ideas_being_worked_upon/ shows that it can work; who's coding the PHP again, and have you got a test version running at home?

Who's coding it... hmm, that's a concern I've been having. I am probably coding some of it, but I don't know when that will happen. I have a pretty full plate of sites I'm being paid to program now. Anyhow, I would love it if we had a show of hands. I for one will put mine up. I also have a production server at home ready to take on the initial hosting._________________Configuring a Firewall? Try my iptables configurationLinuxCommando.com is my blog for linux-related scraps and tidbits. Stop by for a visit!

1. It must be official and should be linked to the forums' accounts.
2. Instead of a completely separate discussion system, a new forum under "Discussion & Documentation" called "Gentoo Brainstorm". When someone create an idea, a new thread is automatically created in this forum: the thread subject should be the idea name. In the Gentoo Brainstorm page, a link should take to that forum thread. The first post on that thread should be the idea description followed by its status (see 6 below).
3. To prevent voting abuse, "n00b" votes should count only 0.5 vote.
3b. "Developer" votes could count as 1.5 vote.
3c. Or "n00b" = 1 vote, everybody else = 2 votes, "developer" = 3 votes.
4. A button should appear for "developer" only, called "Adopt this Idea". Once the idea is adopted, it should appear to everybody "Adopted by [developer name]" (or something like it).
5. Maybe when an idea is adopted it could automatically create an entry in Gentoo Bugzilla.
5a. Or it should be possible to link it to an existing entry in bugzilla, independently of being adopted or not.
6. Adopted ideas should have a field that any developer may edit reporting the status of that idea.
7. Everyone should be allowed to change his mind about an idea. Instead of how pools work, you should be able to take back your vote. (Some ideas sound good/bad at first, but after some discussion that may change).
7b. Even developers should be able to change their mind and abandon an adopted idea.
8. Instead of categories, flags. They could be fixed flags or dynamically created. These flags should be assigned when the idea is first created, and be editable by any "developer".

By "developer" I mean: anyone with the tittle "developer" in their forum account. That should include "Site Admin" (an idea could be about the site) and maybe others.

I'm not very good at web programming (still learning), but I'm willing to help. What should be used to develop this? The traditional MySQL + PHP + javascript or could it be done with some odd tool like, for instance, postgresql + ruby on rails (or adapt the code from Ubuntu Brainstorm)? If it will connect to the forums and/or bugzilla, how could it be done? What level of expertise in web programming is required to help creating something like this (I mean: will this be a great exercise for someone (me) trying to learn how to develop things for the web or is it too big for a beginner)???

I think the first step for this is to get the approval of a Site Admin or developer. So... Do we have your bless? Is it possible? Would you consider this?